Can you learn to be Mentally Tough?

John Walsh Breakthrough

You have recruited, inducted, trained and coached your team and the results are coming through, you are happy with performance levels, but you know you must keep moving forward, where do you go to next to improve your people’s performance further?

This was the question we were asked by a client in July 2017. So first steps for us was to observe their people in action. We looked at personality types, background, and education level, past performance and when we analysed the results; we found one true consistent item in the top performers. It’s what we call GRIT, or Mental Toughness & Resilience.

Aren’t we born with it? Can it be learned? 100% yes it can be, it’s actually our natural state, it’s the process of growing up that gets in the way. The four pillars of Mental Toughness are:

Challenge:Seeing challenges as opportunities, taking a positive view on them

Control:Finding our purpose in life and fulfilling our destiny no matter how grand or how modest.

How much influence did the people that raised us have on these? When you think about it rather a lot! I admit we have some traits in our DNA but look again at the four pillars and you can hear your Mom Dad Siblings or whoever you spent time with in your formative years laying the foundations for you or not.

Just as those “grown ups” put the programmes in place, now we are a grown up we can challenge any limiting ones and replace them with empowering ones. But how do we do we change. The good news is Neuroscientists have discovered “Neuroplasticity” the ability of our brains to form new networks and therefore new beliefs and behaviours. But practically how do we change.

We have developed a simple, practical yet highly effective programme that answers this question. It’s a three-module programme run 30 days apart and it equips you with tools and techniques to build your mental toughness.